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Today is Bastille Day, the National Day of France – la fête nationale française. If you have a bit of French blood in your veins and are a Francophile, like me, that’s reason enough to celebrate. But how to celebrate? With a baguette and a glass of vin rouge? Listening to Edith Piaf (or read more

As the San Francisco Symphony prepares to screen the Oscar-winning film, I reminisce...    Amadeus first entered my consciousness back in the early ‘80s, when I worked in the promotion dept. of Fantasy Records (Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, Creedence Clearwater Revival), which wa read more

As a 5-year-old she completely took apart and put back together her toy music box. She was a child who was very close to her father, a bank director with an interest in inventing. Regularly during their walks through Vienna, where she was born in 1914, he would explain to her the inner workings of m read more

Opened in 1934, the Sebastiani Screens Current and Classic Films On a recent trek into the wine country, we took some time to cruise Sonoma Plaza in the town's center, an area now lined with restaurants, specialty shops and food and wine sellers. Amazingly, in the midst of all this modern-era com read more

Richard Barthelmess in William Wellman's Heroes for Sale (1933) As America continues its steep and steady descent into another dark night of the soul, distressed citizens cope as best they can. Some rant and debate on social media, some organize or take to the streets, others seek solace in their read more

San Francisco's Noir City is the first of several film noir festivals scheduled around the U.S. for 2018 The Film Noir Foundation's 16th annual Noir City festival in San Francisco ran from January 26 through February 4, kicking off a series of nationwide noir festivals, as it traditionally does, fo read more

In my pre-TCM life, before 2005, I ritually watched a small handful of classics during the holiday season every year, films like A Christmas Carol (1951), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and Scrooge (1970) that had been airing on network TV and local channels for years. Then read more

On Friday, December 1 and Saturday, December 2, The San Francisco Symphony will present the Alfred Hitchcock blockbuster, North by Northwest, featuring Bernard Herrmann's iconic score. As with all film series presentations, North by Northwest will be screened with its score scrubbed from the soundtr read more

This is my entry for the Classic Movie Blog Association's Fall 2017 blogathon, Banned and Blacklisted, for links to all contributions, click here. Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel In 1930, 29-year-old Marlene Dietrich created a sensation with her breakout performance as cabaret temptress Lola read more

MADEMOISELLE NOT TO BE MISSED AT SAN FRANCISCO'S 4TH FRENCH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL In Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black (1968), Jeanne Moreau portrayed a woman driven to kill by the reckless accidental shooting of her new husband. In that film, one of Truffaut’s Hitchcockian exerc read more

Jean Gabin and Jeanne Moreau in Gas-Oil, screening on "Rare Gabin Saturday," Nov. 4    4 DAYS/13 FILMS: "THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 4" San Francisco's venerable Roxie Theater will host the 4th installment of THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT, a leading-edge festival of French film noir read more

Lauren Bacall by Cyguy In this better-late-than-never third and final installment in our series on "OOAK" (One-of-a-Kind) celebrity dolls, we'll peruse the work of some highly accomplished and well-respected artists; Pt. 2 featured the work of prolific "repaint" artist Noel Cruz and Pt. 1 focused o read more

Casablanca - winner of Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch) Oscars and possibly the film from Hollywood’s golden era that has aged better than any other “as time goes by” - turns 75 this year. Casablanca was ho read more

Preston Sturges’s final remarkable comedy, the deliriously dark Unfaithfully Yours (1948), screened twice at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, on April 7 and April 9. That it screened a second time speaks to the impact of this lesser known Struges gem the first time it was shown; ma read more

  SCREENED TO SRO CROWD AT TCM FESTIVAL OPENS AT LAEMMLE'S ROYAL IN LOS ANGELES MAY 5 During TCM’s 8th annual Classic Film Festival in Hollywood last month more than 75 films were presented, all of them classics and almost all of them appealing to me. But there were two that I was ab read more

For four days in May, twelve mostly rare films noir from eleven countries around the world will screen at San Francisco's Roxie Theater in the heart of the city's Mission District. The event, A Rare Noir is Good to Find 2, is the second international film noir festival to be presented at the Roxie b read more

Kathleen Byron and Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus, a production of The Archers One of the truly sublime experiences (and there were many) of this year's TCM Classic Film Festival was the joy of viewing a nitrate print of The Archers' (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) great masterpiece Bla read more

Kathleen Byron and Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus, a production of The Archers One of the truly sublime experiences (and there were many) of this year's TCM Classic Film Festival was the joy of viewing a nitrate print of The Archers' (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) great masterpiece Bla read more

  Noel Cruz is one of the most highly acclaimed among OOAK doll repaint artists on the scene. A Filipino-American based in Anaheim, California, Cruz’s reputation rests upon his talent for fashioning repainted dolls that bear amazing likeness to their subjects. His specialty is character read more

  Noel Cruz is one of the most highly acclaimed among OOAK doll repaint artists on the scene. A Filipino-American based in Anaheim, California, Cruz’s reputation rests upon his talent for fashioning repainted dolls that bear amazing likeness to their subjects. His specialty is character read more